By Jan TenBruggencate
Advertiser Columnist

Two new Kaua'i authors, writing about distinctly different subjects, launch their stories from a similar theme — that the residents of the state's westernmost community are unique in special ways.

Sheila Heathcote Arthur's stories about the island's survival of hurricanes start with the presumption that the island is different, and suggests that its people, "who represent a conglomerate of different cultures, religions and ethnic backgrounds, have qualities that are found in few other populations. They live in harmony with one another and with the island that is their home."

Economist Ken Stokes takes it another step, and argues that out of the lives of the people on the Garden Island, it is possible to draw guidelines on how to build a healthy society that includes everyone and cares for land, culture and people.

One conclusion: "If natural and society capital are as important as financial capital, Kaua'i is already wealthy," Stokes writes.

He says that it is possible to bring the entire island along on a sustainable path — "neither pro-business nor pro-government, but pro-community. Not motivated by ripe profit nor raw power, but by our vision for real progress. Neither left nor right, but forward."

In Stokes' vision, the island is a garden, and its people are gardeners, responsible for feeding the community today and at the same time responsible that decisions made today will ensure that the garden is still capable of sustaining the community in the future.

It requires not linear thinking, but a kind of thinking that constantly comes back on itself, draws in more information, more people, and a widening awareness of the environment and of one another. He argues that the isolation fostered by newcomers who want gated communities and walled estates is anathema to the Kauaian ideal.

Arthur, who gives the history of hurricanes on the island, along with extended quotations from people who survived them, suggests that native Hawaiians have faced environmental challenges and take them in stride, and that many immigrants came from hard circumstances and also naturally respond appropriately to challenge.

"When hurricanes struck Kaua'i ... wiping out power, water and communication, the sons and daughters of these hardy immigrants rolled up their sleeves and, with few complaints, went about their business without the conveniences of modern life," she writes.

Kaua'i folks, she said, "willingly join their neighbors to confront unexpected acts of nature."

"Tales of the Tempests: The Hurricanes of Kaua'i," by Sheila Heathcote Arthur, Primitive Graffiti Publishing, $12.95.

"Tending the Garden Island: Toward a New Kauaian Governance," by Ken Stokes, Kauaian Press, $20.

Jan TenBruggencate is The Advertiser's Kaua'i bureau chief and its science and environment writer. Reach him at (808) 245-3074 or jant@honoluluadvertiser.com.